Balancing birds

Tiny goldfinches and chickadees are adept at perching on sunflowers and pulling out the seeds, but the bigger cardinals have more trouble. The cardinal's weight makes the flower sway and dip, and eventually the cardinal loses footing and flips off the flower in a flurry of wings.

I had to take these photos through a window because I'm a bit incapacitated today and the birds refuse to approach the sunflowers in my presence. It's hard to get good pictures through a window because the exposure is never quite right and the window may be dirty and distort the image. One of these days I'll figure out a way to make them ignore me; meanwhile, I'll put up with what I've got.